I had no opportunity at the moment, which was just before dinner, for
pursuing the conversation further, but I thought the answer too
important not to be followed up. There were private theatricals after
dinner, which lasted till nearly one o'clock in the morning. I was
seated in the theater of the Castle just behind the Emperor, and, as the
company broke up, I went forward and asked him whether he really meant
seriously that he was willing to give us the "gate," because, if he did
mean it, I would go to London early and see Sir Edward Grey at the
Foreign Office.

Next morning, about 7.30 o'clock, a helmeted guardsman, one of those
whom the Emperor had brought over with him from Berlin, knocked loudly
at the door and came into my bedroom, and said that he had a message
from the Emperor. It was that he did mean what he had said the night
before. I at once got up and caught a train for London. There I saw the
Foreign Secretary, who, after taking time to think things over, gave me
a memorandum he had drawn up. The substance of it was that the British
Government would be very glad to discuss the Emperor's suggestion, but
that it would be necessary, before making a settlement, to bring into
the discussion France and Russia, whose interests also were involved. I
was requested to sound the Emperor further.

After telling King Edward of what was happening, I had another
conversation in Windsor Castle with the Emperor, who said that he feared
that the bringing in of Russia particularly, not to speak of France,
would cause difficulty; but he asked me to come that night, after a
performance that was to take place in the Castle theater had ended, to
his apartments, to a meeting to which he would summon the Ministers he
had brought with him. He took the memorandum which I had brought from